I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to interactive video games and toys for infants, and in particular to a unique educational computer toy that provides an enriched environment for language learning while simultaneously facilitating the attentional skills of an infant.
II. Description of Related Art
The world of a newborn is a tangle of strange new sights and sounds which the infant must sort through and organize into an orderly arrangement of information. This process occurs during the normal course of the baby's development as she explores her environment and tests the world around her. These early interactions between the infant and her surroundings encourage neural growth and stimulate mental development. Toys are universally used to promote this developmental process, and the ability of infants to learn by playing with properly designed toys is widely recognized.
Traditional toys for this age group have included mobiles, rattles, squeeze toys and the like. However, with the advent of the computer age, sophisticated electronic toys for infants have been added to the list. The technology employed by these new toys allows for more improved methods of encouraging learning. In addition, many of the newer toys are designed to stimulate and promote specific developmental skills such as gross motor skills, eye-hand coordination, vision, and other fundamental skills. In particular, some new toys have been specially designed to foster vocalization, speech, and verbal communication.
As infants develop their vocalization and verbal skills, they typically progress through an identifiable sequence of developmental stages characterized by babbles of increasing complexity. Such babbling is a form of exploration by the infant and appears to be a necessary step in the normal process of phonological development.
During an infant's progression through the various stages of babbling, feedback plays a crucial role in the development of a vocalic repertoire. Parents reinforce this development by responding to the infant's communicative initiatives. Moreover, the process is reinforced each time the infant hears the sound of her own voice. Repeated reinforcement is vital because proper speech development requires the infant to master the vocalization of many different phonemes in a multitude of combinations. Computer toys offer several advantages in this respect. They can be designed to provide vocal stimulation and reinforcement as often as necessary and in a manner that can hold the attention of a newborn.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,478,240 discloses an electronic toy for teaching a child language skills by utilizing a keyboard which is associated with the toy. But, because use of this toy requires keyboard skills, it is not appropriate for an infant.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,358,259 discloses a talking video game that provides simulated voice dialog between human players and animated characters on a TV screen. Because this game is geared to a child who already has some basic language skills, it is also not appropriate for an infant.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,260,869 discloses a system that promotes normal auditory development in an infant by facilitating the infant's exploration of a developmental sequence of sounds and a repertoire of simple spoken words. This system, while appropriate for an infant, can only reinforce the infant's vocalization by the playback of prerecorded sounds and visuals in response to the activation of pressure micro switches.
In spite of these and other previously known toys that stimulate language development, it would be desirable to have an improved toy that monitors an infant's babbling and instantly plays back the infant's babbling thus allowing the infant to hear the sound of her own voice repeated immediately after each vocalized babble. This monitoring and playing back of vocalizations creates an enriched environment for language learning and provides important reinforcement that makes the present invention a useful language development tool.